Cemetery Cleaning
Courtesy of the Florida Memory Project
Here’s another installment in our series on the WPA America eats project from the Great Depression era. This story comes straight from the Florida history file in the Library of Congress.
The annual cemetery cleaning was a custom practiced in many small towns throughout North Florida. On some set day in the fall of the year, many residents drive out for an all day picnic at the community cemetery. The purpose is to clean graves, rake paths and plant flowers; but the event of the day is the one o’clock dinner. Food is brought by all families attending and the best cooking in the region is offered. Chicken fried, baked stewed, salads of endless variety, pickles, biscuits, and sweet milk, coffee and tea, watermelon and orange preserves, pies, chocolate, banana and pineapple cakes—all are spread out at once on long tables underneath the trees. To eat from one’s own basket which shows a lack of respect for a neighbors cooking. Participants wander along the table selecting at will dishes, and praising the contributions of friends. After the meal, work in the cemetery is resumed in a somewhat desultory manner. It is the procedure to clean one’s own family life, then to help those with larger plots, and finally to work on the graves of those who have no surviving relatives.
